Panic

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

            “Well, darling, this is it,” Mother said, looking around my dorm room.  “It looks quite nice, doesn’t it?”

            I frowned and looked around the room.  Ten identical beds four poster beds sat against the north wall, each with a bedside table on the right and a small desk on the left.  At the foot of the bed was a trunk for shoes and jewellery, and across from each bed on the south wall was a wardrobe.  All of my new dresses had already been hung in it.  Mother had helped me organize everything.  She’d been quite nice about the whole business.  John and Michael had brought in my old trunk with my shoes, fans, and other accessories.

            “It’s alright,” I supposed, thinking of my four poster bed at home, with its pastel blue hangings and silky blue blankets.  “It’s not quite as good as home.”

            “Wendy, please,” Mother said, her voice cracking.  “I don’t want you to leave either, but I want you to have a bright future.”

            “I understand,” I said, not wishing to cause my fragile mother any more pain.  “I love you.”

            Mother hugged me tightly.  “I love you too, Wendy, my dear,” she said.

            She released me, and John hugged me.  “Wendy, do try not to give any of your teachers a heart attack,” he whispered.  “I reckon they aren’t used to girls like you.”

            “I’ll do my best,” I said, with a slight smile.  John let me go, and he pressed something in my hand.  I started to open it, but John grabbed my hand and squeezed it shut.  He shook his head slightly, and I nodded, slipping the object into my pinafore pocket. 

            Michael hugged me as well.  “I’m sure three months will pass very quickly,” he told me.  “You’ll be back before you know it.”

            “I’m sure I will be,” I said.  “I’ll miss you.”

            “I’ll miss you too,” he said.  John stood behind him, looking somewhat lost.  I opened up one arm, and he joined in the embrace.  The three of us stood there for a bit, and then John and Michael let go. 

            “Love you Wendy,” John said.

            “I love you Wendy,” Michael echoed.

            “I love you both too,” I said.

            Mother cleared her throat.  “Well, we’d best be off,” she said.  “Goodbye Wendy.”

            “Goodbye Mother,” I said, and John and Michael followed her out of the dormitory.

            I looked around the room.  It had been empty when I was getting unpacked, and the room was still vacant.  This was as good a time as any to open John’s gift.  I sat down on the bed that the dormitory mother had indicated was mine when my family had been in earlier.  I took the gift out of my pocket.  It was a small, flat object and a long, round object wrapped in cloth.  I unwrapped the cloth, and a glass tube and a shell arrowhead fell out into my lap.  I picked up the arrowhead and inspected it.  Carved on the base of the arrowhead were four letters: PPJD.  Peter Pan and John Darling.  John and Peter had enjoyed making arrows together that they would shoot at chalk circles drawn on trees.  If a boy got an arrow inside the circle, he would be the king of the island for the day.  I hadn’t known that John even had one of the old arrowheads.

            I ran my thumb over the smooth shell.  I smiled when I thought of my first bow.  Peter had worked very hard to make it for me.  One night, while he had been shooting at one of the targets, he had walked over to the bushes and had pulled out my bow.  He had carved little flowers into it, and my name had been carved in at the bottom.  My arrows had been made of sticks and shells, like everyone else’s, but Peter had searched for many hours and had found a number of pale blue shells.  He had, with Hook’s help, made my arrowheads out of the blue shells, because he had known that blue was my favourite colour.  At the base, he had carved four letters: PPWD.  Peter Pan and Wendy Darling.